Share My Space has been awarded the 2022 Defense Innovation Prize. Born in 2018, this European Defense Agency (EDA) award is now widely acclaimed within the European community. Symbol of technological innovation, it represents a brilliant way to reach out to outstanding companies and include them in the construction of European defence capabilities.
This year’s edition covered space-based surveillance and reconnaissance defence technologies. The EDA, in close collaboration with the European Space Agency’s Space Debris Office, were looking to award ground-breaking technologies for military and dual-use operations with a special focus on debris and artificial orbiting objects. The 2022 evaluation committee comprised EDA and European Space Agency (ESA) staff.
Given this edition’s theme, Share My Space’s team was extremely motivated to conceptualize one of its innovative projects: the Complete Object Monitoring for Precise and Active Space Surveillance (COMPASS).
COMPASS represents the next step toward space safety and sustainability. While Share My Space currently engages in orbital object tracking via its ground-based telescopes, COMPASS, a space observation system, would constitute a significant additional asset for accurate cataloguing.
COMPASS is a satellite constellation of 12 micro-satellites in Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). It would provide real-time space domain awareness of more than 30,000 orbital objects on all orbits in 2025 and 100,000 objects in 2027. Together, ground and space-based systems will form an unprecedented space surveillance capability, operational for EDA member states, civilians and private customers.
This remarkable project led Share My Space to win the EDA €30,000 prize money, an outstanding reward that demonstrates European interest toward COMPASS but also its credibility.